to be found round-headed arched doorways with double doors and the arch, either round or flattened, appears in various forms from time to time while the fluted or carved or turned key block, in sundry curious varieties, appears at the centre of arches and also in other places. The key block practically disappears in the second phase of Georgian. The arch also loses its prominence and we find more straight lines. Indeed, during the second or more distinctly Palladian phase of Georgian we scarcely find the arch at all in domestic architecture except in the middle member of the Palladian window or in the lights over house doors. One might go on almost indefinitely tabulating characteristic details that belong essentially to the first Georgian phase but enough has been said to direct attention to the general aspect and to enable an observant person to differentiate it from the others.

Of the second Georgian phase in New England we could not desire a better or more thoroughly typical example than the Lee house in Marblehead, erected in 1768. It is the embodiment of robust and yet agreeably proportioned classicality. The mouldings and cornices have lost the ponderosity of proportion that was observable in many of the houses of earlier type. The placing of ornamental detail is far more carefully considered and governed with a reasonable restraint. Interesting as some of the earlier examples of door treatment were for their very exuberance of fancy and their vigour, they were, nevertheless, a trifle awkward when compared with a well designed and better balanced doorway of a subsequent date. When acanthus leaves, rosettes or other decorative motifs are introduced, it is in a thoroughly well mannered way that leaves nothing to be desired regarding proportion or propriety of placing. The spiral baluster spindles on the staircase of the Lee house are exceptionally fine and worthily represent the style of baluster turning and carving that belongs especially to this middle period.

In the banquet hall the overmantel presents an unusually fine specimen of the wood-carver’s art. The great panel, with dog-ear corners and Flemish scroll supports, is flanked by two pendants of fruit, flowers and leaves carved with all the delicacy and intricate finish of the school of Grinling Gibbon. It is more elaborate, of course, than most of the interior carving found in the second Georgian phase but it is typical in that it is better disciplined than the earlier efforts in the same direction which were often inclined to be crude. The interior cornices are more refined in detail and not so bold in contour as formerly. The egg and dart motif becomes common and other ornamental details are used in an understanding way and in their conventional forms, whereas at an earlier period they were not always historically correct, though often ingenious, nor were they invariably well placed.

The last phase of New England Georgian architecture was distinctly a period of Adam inspiration as it was in other parts of the country, with this difference, however. Elsewhere the third Georgian phase was forsaken all too soon for the newer glamour of the Classic Revival for which, in a manner, it prepared the way. In New England, under the influence of such men as Charles Bulfinch and Samuel McIntire, the delicate proportions and fascinatingly refined details brought into English architecture by the Brothers Adam remained in favour until well into the nineteenth century and exercised a beneficial effect that has not yet lost its force. With excellent taste both Bulfinch and McIntire employed the Adam heritage of urns, pendent husks, anthemia, ovals, spandril fans and all the rest of the Pompeian refinements, and McIntire unhesitatingly lengthened out the proportions of pillars and pilasters until he had removed all suggestion of grossness from his design and imparted a slender grace to all his work. Though he made various innovations, McIntire really prolonged the Adam period in New England and saved domestic architecture, wherever his influence was strong enough, from the deplorable banality into which the more unconsidered forms of the Classic Revival degenerated.

In the felicity of its local adaptations, in the dignity it imparted to the visible side of public life, in its virile development manifested in the churches and other public buildings, the Georgian architecture of New England has given us numerous patterns worthy of emulation in toto or in part and has left an indelible and beneficial impress upon the nation’s artistic consciousness.

CHAPTER VII

GEORGIAN ARCHITECTURE IN NEW YORK

Several reasons may be assigned in answer to this question. In the first place, the representative Georgian houses in all parts of the Colonies were the homes of that part of the population that enjoyed affluent circumstances; they were not the homes of the plainer folk nor of those in humble circumstances. The majority of well-to-do citizens were to be found in New York City and there, naturally, were most of the Georgian houses. Even those that counted themselves as residents of other parts of the Province, as a rule, had their town houses there. What befel the Georgian country houses we shall shortly learn.

Unfortunately for the student of our architectural history, the relentless tide of mercantile progress in New York City has ruthlessly swept aside nearly all the landmarks of former generations and replaced them with high office buildings, factories, flats or warehouses. Only in the fabric of a few of the older churches or in some of the backwaters left by the eddying currents of urban life have a few scattered remnants of the city of the eighteenth century been preserved for us and even these are rapidly disappearing.

In the second place, a large proportion of the Georgian country houses, outside the territory now covered by the spread of New York City, have suffered so sadly at the hands of nineteenth century “improvers”, whose unintelligent alterations and additions have wrought architectural havoc, that oftentimes nearly all traces of Georgian characteristics have either been seriously marred or altogether destroyed. Instead of stately Georgian dwellings of august mien and compelling interest, as they once were, they have become mere commonplace and often repulsive agglomerations of masonry like other structures erected during the uninspired Victorian era. This is their plight outwardly and within they have often been subjected to indignities quite as revolting. Such systematic and calculating vandalism on the part of former owners cannot be too severely condemned but condemnation will not undo the mischief, and only the most conscientious process of restoration can in some measure remedy the misdeeds of the “enlightened” nineteenth century spoiler.

Another important reason for the paucity of Georgian domestic structures within the territory of New York is that, in the Hudson region and in the valleys abutting upon it, the majority of houses built during the eighteenth century, houses belonging to those in moderate and comfortable circumstances and also some belonging to people of great wealth and social prominence, remained Dutch in type and in their later architecture borrowed freely from Georgian and Classic Revival sources and adapted such details as they saw fit to new uses with a considerable degree of success. The Dutch colonial tradition was exceptionally strong, virile and intensely characteristic and persisted in spite of the introduction of the Georgian mode. Curiously enough, notwithstanding the potent individuality of the Dutch style, none of its significant peculiarities seems to have been grafted upon the Georgian stock in like manner with the blending processes and modifications that took place in New England or in the South.

Finally, a great many houses built about the beginning of the nineteenth century or at the very end of the eighteenth in the western part of New York showed a strong Classic Revival influence rather than any essentially Georgian affinities.

Several of the finest examples of eighteenth century work, which for lack of further special subdivision of our subject must be included in the Georgian period, belong to the Queen Anne category under the strictest classification. These are Fraunce’s Tavern and the Philipse House in Yonkers. The former was erected during the reign of Queen Anne and was originally the home of the Van Cortlandts and DeLanceys. It was not until the middle part of the eighteenth century that it became a hostelry. So many important events have been closely associated with the venerable building, among them Washington’s affecting leave-taking of his officers and troops, that it was both the privilege and duty of patriotism and a proper national pride to rescue the fabric from neglect and the

base uses to which it had fallen and restore it, so far as possible, to its former appearance and condition after all the vicissitudes which several generations of nineteenth century neglect and lack of appreciation had imposed upon it. In its general proportions, in the lines of its hipped roof and in many interior details, such as the panelling, it is distinctly reminiscent of some of the best English work of Queen Anne’s day although in several respects may also be traced the architectural influences of a later era. The other building, even earlier in date than Fraunce’s Tavern, has not suffered from the same damaging chances of fortune and debasement and far fewer of its details are conjectural. One might say that the carcase and contour of the Philipse Manor House are of Queen Anne character but that beyond that it is conglomerate since it embodies so many peculiarities and additions of later times that it can scarcely be considered truly typical of any one epoch. While much of the fabric is in its original condition, as erected in the latter part of the seventeenth century, the addition of Georgian details and adornments made by the lords of the manor during the eighteenth century may readily be traced, and while they are all interesting and admirable and not in any sense to be regarded as pieces of vandalism, they prevent the structure from presenting an appearance in strict chronological keeping with the date of its erection.

The Schuyler and Van Rensselaer houses have also undergone some unfortunate modifications from time to time which have impaired their typal value to the architectural student so that we are forced to content ourselves, when considering the Georgian houses of New York that are still really characteristic, with the Van Cortlandt house in Van Cortlandt Park and the Jumel Mansion. These are, both of them, interesting and worthy specimens belonging to the middle Georgian phase or the phase that corresponds chronologically with the middle Georgian phase elsewhere, but even here the hand of the “restorer” has recently taken some liberties which one cannot help feeling were unnecessary. The Van Cortlandt house—it is not to be confounded with the Van Cortlandt Manor House which is of much earlier date and is situated at the mouth of the Croton River many miles distant—was erected slightly before the middle of the eighteenth century and is an admirable specimen of the Georgian feeling of that particular day. One of the most striking features of exterior detail is to be found in the procession of grotesque heads or masques carved in high relief on the keystones of the lintels above the windows. They are typical of the decorative trend of the epoch, and although

their employment is not common in American Georgian architecture, other examples are to be found on the tower of the State House in Philadelphia, the tower of Christ Church, in the same city, and in the trims of some of the small circular windows in the gable ends of the Old State House in Boston. The panelling and interior adornments of the Van Cortlandt house display the disciplined proportion and judicious placing usually observable in other representative houses of the middle of the eighteenth century before the delicacy and decorative profusion of Adam influence had replaced the simpler and more robust conceptions of the school of Gibbs and his contemporaries. The Jumel Mansion with its hipped roof terminating in a balustraded deck, its substantial foursquare dimensions, its heavy quoins and its well proportioned columns is also eminently characteristic of the same school of architectural design.

CHAPTER VIII

PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JERSEY AND DELAWARE GEORGIAN

1720-1805

soil and the habitual industry of the people, had accumulated a substantial volume of public and private wealth. Ripe conditions readily begot the temptation to build more ambitiously and means were not lacking to gratify the inclination to spend. From the beginning of the Georgian period onward, houses were planned and built with an air of amplitude and assured permanence that bespoke a comfortable consciousness of firmly established and easy affluence which justified the builders in planning broadly both for their own day and for future generations. Town houses and country houses equally indicated the wealth and estate of their owners and reflected the lavish and elegant mode of life more truly than any of the other tangible memorials still remaining from those days.

From the middle of the eighteenth century Philadelphia was the largest and most important city in the American Colonies and one naturally expects, therefore, to find country houses more representative and more numerous in the neighbourhood than elsewhere. For that reason the Georgian houses in the vicinity of Philadelphia will furnish the examples used in the latter part of this chapter to illustrate the variations of type characteristic of Pennsylvania, Delaware and the Jerseys, in other words, the section of the country for which Philadelphia was the natural centre of influence.

To some it may, perhaps, seem strange that houses which oftentimes exhibit so much architectural elegance and elaboration of detail should have been built in a community supposedly dominated by the principle of outward simplicity professed by the Society of Friends. As a matter of fact, however, the Quaker influence, though always a powerful factor in every aspect of Philadelphia life, was offset and oftentimes strongly opposed by the vigorous social and political activity of the “World’s People”, that is to say, the members of the Church of England and the adherents of the Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, Lutheran and Baptist Churches, many of whom were the acknowledged leaders of society and managed to impart no small degree of dash and gaiety to the life of their day and generation. It should also be remembered that the Friends were by no means uniform in their interpretation and practice of the social discipline of their organisation. While some of the plain Friends were exceedingly strait in their behaviour and dress and eschewed all manner of frivolity, there were many who found it quite compatible with their consciences to attend brilliant social functions, attired in sumptuous and brave coloured clothes, dance, go to punch drinkings and join heartily in the frequent fox hunts for which the country about Philadelphia has always been famous.

In one particular both Friends and “World’s People” were precisely alike. They all dearly loved good eating and were noted for openhanded hospitality and frequent entertaining. At a later date, when John Adams first came to Philadelphia, he notes in his diary with constant and unabated surprise the “sinful feasts” in which Philadelphians habitually indulged. Indeed, a slight acquaintance with the old diaries is enough to convince one that the men, women and children, too, of eighteenth century Philadelphia often “gormandised to the verge of gluttony.” The following entry in the diary of Ann Warder is so characteristic of what often took place that it is worth quoting at some length. She says:—

John Adams, recording his admiration for the town house and furniture of Judge Chew of Cliveden, says of a dinner given by that gentleman:—

Servants in considerable numbers were necessarily maintained in the larger establishments and were made up of slaves, indentured bondsmen or redemptioners, and free servitors who were paid what we should now consider ridiculously small wages for their services.

Balls and routs were by no means infrequent and some of the larger houses boasted sumptuously appointed ball rooms that would do credit to many a large house of present day design. As one example of these we may note the ball room of the Powel house in Third Street which occupied the whole front of the second floor. “In this state apartment, the overmantel was an exquisite piece of the wood carver’s art and represented a hunting scene above which were wrought armorial bearings in high relief. Delicately finished carving was also to be found in other parts of the house.... The doors of the rooms are of solid mahogany while a rich mahogany wainscotting runs all the way up the staircase.... The front of the house is of unusual breadth and, as might be expected, the rooms are of dimensions far beyond the ordinary.”

The courtly mode of life of the “World’s People” was reflected even in their church going array. One diarist of the middle of the eighteenth century, a stranger who had travelled extensively in the Colonies and was therefore competent to judge, writes after attending Christ Church on a Sunday morning, that he saw there a larger number of well dressed people than he had ever seen together before. He continues:—“The Episcopalians showed most grandeur of dress and costumes—next the Presbyterians—the gentlemen of whom freely indulged in powdered and frizzled hair.” “While Philadelphia was the seat of the Republican Court, the grandeur of Christ Church congregation was increased. The arrival of the worshippers in damasks and brocades, velvet breeches and silk stockings, powdered hair and periwigs, was a sight to see. Some came afoot, others drove in chairs or clattered up in cumbrous, awesome coaches, with two or four horses, while Washington’s equipage, drawn by six cream coloured steeds, added the final touch to the imposing spectacle.” All this cavalcade seemed but an echo of the earlier days when Sir William Keith, of Graeme Park, Horsham, one of the early governours of the Province, was wont to drive to the churchyard gates with his coach and four, with outriders in truly regal fashion, liveried footmen on the post board and his arms blazoned on the panels of the doors. Nor was Sir William alone in this gorgeous display, for there were others who came with similar equipage and even today more than one of these lumbering old coaches, with arm-blazoned doors, may be found mouldering away in the coach houses of old country places.

Besides all these items there was a great quantity of household gear that would take too much space to catalogue. Other inventories of the time were comparable to the one just given.

It is no wonder that people who were able to live in the manner indicated by such lists of personal effects wished to have houses in keeping with their means and looked with favour upon architectural designs of elegant proportions and details. Unlike many of the fine Georgian houses of New England, which exhibited a comparatively plain and simple exterior, the houses of the same date in Pennsylvania and the Middle Colonies displayed a degree of outside elaboration to correspond with the interior embellishments.

The materials used were ordinarily either brick or stone, the latter in many cases being carefully cut and dressed, sometimes for the front only, sometimes for the walls all the way round. This was quite in accord with the tradition of the locality to which allusion has been previously made. While much of the fine woodwork was executed on the spot, a good deal of it was fetched from England by wealthy merchants for their own use in their ships trading between Philadelphia and English ports. The gardens were usually designed in a manner to comport with the houses they surrounded and it is no unusual thing even now to find well kept box borders and hedges that have been the pride of their owners for generations.

Having noted the conditions that made the Georgian style of architecture particularly acceptable to people of substance in the eighteenth century it now remains to examine in detail the features constituting its distinctive local character. The examples of Georgian domestic architecture to be found in and about Philadelphia offer an unsurpassed field for examination and comparison, and a study of their peculiarities shows an interesting evolution through three distinct forms, all of which, nevertheless, belong to the same generic classification. “Georgian,” of course, in the narrowest sense of the word would indicate the mode in vogue only during the reigns of the Georges, but Georgian architecture is not to be limited by any such cramped or arbitrary bounds. It was the style evolved by logical steps from the prevailing type of preceding reigns and was, in short, an expression of Renaissance Classicism, filtered through a medium of English interpretation and adapted to local needs, on lines first marked out by the seventeenth century architects headed by Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher

Wren. The stateliness and formality of Georgian design satisfied the cravings of prosperous Colonial gentry for the affluent pomp and circumstance with which they chose to surround themselves.

The process of evolution in the several Georgian types of the Philadelphia neighbourhood was slow in its working, perhaps, but unmistakable as a comparison of examples will show. Indeed, a glance at the illustrations accompanying this chapter will discover easily distinguished differences of contour and detail corresponding to the evolutionary stages. Fortunately, history comes to aid us, removing all element of conjecture and giving us, instead, a comfortable certainty of the ground we are treading on. It is, of course, impossible to set any exact and unalterable dates for our three Georgian types; our purpose will be best subserved by giving approximate dates between which certain characteristics may be looked for and certain changes expected to take place. We may, roughly speaking, say that the first type flourished between 1720 and 1740, the second type from 1740 to 1770 and the third type from 1770 to 1805. Several parts of these three type divisions were marked by times of great building activity and others again by times of comparative idleness. From 1720 to 1730 there was a great deal going on. Then again, about 1760, we find a regular epidemic of house construction breaking out. Just before, during and after the Revolutionary War, as one would naturally assume, public stress, peril and uncertainty discouraged the prosecution of new plans, although the builders, even then, were not wholly idle. What has just been said applies particularly to country seats, as we have fuller data concerning them than we have about most of the town houses. What were once country seats have been selected, too, because they are, for the most part, intact, while comparatively few of the town houses remain in their original interior state, being, as they chiefly are, in a part of the city now given over to business or to the housing of the foreign population.

Philadelphia affords especially favourable opportunity for a careful examination and study of the several types of Georgian expression. Indeed, for purposes of comparison, the advantages it offers are unsurpassed, owing to the available wealth of varied material of the best sorts, and that, too, in a state of excellent preservation. At times one is really troubled with an embarrassment of riches in this respect and selection becomes difficult. From the early years of the eighteenth century, Philadelphia advanced rapidly in commercial prosperity. Ship building, textile industry and various sorts of manufactures soon brought a bulk of trade second to none among the seaports of the Colonies. Traffic with the East and West Indies, as well as with Europe, poured gold into the coffers of her merchants and brought affluence and culture at an early stage of her career. The chief wealth of her most considerable citizens was almost invariably derived from profitable shipping ventures. By 1750 Penn’s “greene country towne” had become the greatest and most important city in the country, the metropolis of the American colonies. “No other could boast of so many streets, so many houses, so many people, so much renown. No other city was so rich, so extravagant, so fashionable.” Among the features that impressed visitors from distant lands was the fineness of the houses. Men of such social distinction and substance as were many of Philadelphia’s principal citizens would not be meanly housed, and it is not surprising, therefore, that much of the best domestic Georgian architecture in America is to be found in the city or in its immediate neighbourhood, where town houses or country seats mirrored the estate and consequence of their owners. As one instance—and there were many—of a delightful and favourite suburb, now included in Fairmount Park, but then well beyond the city boundaries, we may cite that portion of the Schuylkill, of charm and loveliness unexcelled, where the river winds among rolling highlands on whose summits spacious homes of comely dignity sheltered some of the most distinguished citizens of the metropolis whose society was gayer, more polished and wealthier than anywhere else this side of the Atlantic. Here, too, the country seats bespoke the urbanity and degree of their occupants, and here, today, they still bear mute witness to an elegance long passed.

Notwithstanding all this architectural wealth and its perfect accessibility, Philadelphia has hitherto received but scant justice at the hands of many architectural writers. In an highly esteemed and well known work, properly regarded as a valuable source of information anent architecture in Colonial and Post-Colonial America, the writer of one portion has greatly erred in his estimate and analysis of Philadelphia’s Georgian remains, probably through insufficient acquaintance with that part of his subject. After referring to Philadelphia as architecturally “the embodiment of Philistinism,” he goes on to speak of the buildings of Colonial days and says of them, “The details generally are hard and crude and often inappropriate.” As a representative example of the eighteenth century country place he instances the Bartram house and writes, “The home of the Colonial botanist, John Bartram, at Philadelphia, built in 1731, has two-storey semi-detached columns with huge Ionic scrolls. The German rococo mouldings in the window frames, too, are out of all scale with the humble dwelling.” Bartram’s house ought not to be regarded as in any way representative of Philadelphia domestic architecture, and, least of all, as representative of Georgian buildings. It is in a class all by itself and represents nothing but John Bartram’s home-made efforts in both plan—if it can be said to have any plan—and execution of detail. Whatever its inconsistencies and defects, there is undeniably the charm of beauty and interest about the place, but it has no architectural affinities. The same writer goes on glibly to assure his readers that “In Pennsylvania there were rarely any verandas, porches or gardens,”—a mischievous and misleading statement.

The verandas and porches may take care of themselves for the nonce, but the gardens need a passing word of vindication. In no place were there more notable gardens than in Philadelphia. Leaving Bartram’s garden out of the horticultural tale—the writer might cavil at it as a kind of nursery—there was “The Woodlands” near by, whose gardens, from the middle of the eighteenth century onward were as extensive and famous as any in the land, and exquisitely planned and maintained. There was the Grange, well known from early Colonial days, whose garden, even in its decay, is wonderful and beautiful.... There was Ury House whose box garden has been the pride of its owners and has delighted their guests for more than a hundred and fifty years and is today maintained in all its pristine trimness. There were the gardens at Grumblethorpe, Netherfield, Cedar Grove, the Highlands, Belmont, Fair Hill, to name only a few, while in the heart of the city the Bingham, Powel, Blackwell, Willing, Morris, and Cadwalader houses, along with many others, all had spacious gardens, well planted and tastefully arranged. A writer who could ignore all this material, could scarcely be expected to do justice to the houses. The examples now to be adduced will set the matter in a fairer light.

It ought to be stated that most of the eighteenth century houses in Philadelphia and its neighbourhood were not designed by professional architects, but were planned by their owners and executed by skillful carpenters and builders. Some architectural knowledge was held to be a part of a gentleman’s education, and such men as Andrew Hamilton and John Kearsley, though amateurs, displayed no contemptible ability. The master carpenters of the city, in 1724, composed a guild large and prosperous enough to be patterned after “The Worshipful Company of Carpenters of London,” and, in 1736, became possessed of a choice collection of architectural works devised to his fellow members by James Portius whom William Penn had induced to come to his new city to “design and execute his Proprietary buildings.” In the Ridgway branch of the Philadelphia Library there is also a collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century books, treating of architecture, carpentry, joinery and various subjects connected with building, an examination of which will show that the artisans of the Georgian period were well supplied with guides devised to make the mysteries of their craft plain to the “meanest understanding.”

The two houses chosen to exemplify the first Georgian type are Graeme Park, Horsham, begun in 1721 and finished the following year by Sir William Keith, sometime Lieutenant-Governour of the Province, and Hope Lodge, in the Whitemarsh Valley, built in 1723. Graeme Park was then in the heart of the wilderness and a special road had to be cut, still called the Governour’s Road, to enable His Excellency to reach the Old York Road whenever he chose to trundle to the city in his great begilt and blazoned coach, drawn by four stout horses and attended with all the panoply of state as befitted a person of his rank.

The house suited the manorial style of life maintained by the baronet. To the rear of the main building were detached wings containing quarters for the servants, the kitchens and the various domestic offices, thus leaving the whole of the hall for the use of its occupants. The small buildings disappeared years ago, and the whole place, long unoccupied, is gradually falling into decay, a plight from which, however, it could be easily rescued. The house is over 60 feet long, 25 feet in depth and three storeys in height. The walls are of rich brown field stone, carefully laid and fitted, and are more than 2 feet thick, while over the doors and windows, whose dimensions are thoroughly characteristic of the date of erection, selected stones are laid in flattened arches.

At the north end of the building is a great hall or parlour, 21 feet square, with walls wainscotted and panelled from floor to ceiling, a height of fourteen feet. The fireplace in the parlour is faced with dark marble, brought from abroad, while in the other rooms Dutch tiles were used for the same purpose. On each floor are three rooms. Stairs and banisters are of heavy white oak, and all the other woodwork, of yellow pine, is of unusual beauty, executed in simple and vigorous design. The woodwork is worthy of special attention, for therein we may see embodied some of the chief characteristics of the first Georgian type. The detail of ornamentation is heavy and bold, though by no means ungraceful. Mouldings and cornices are more pronounced in profile than we find them at a later date and stand out with peculiarly insistent relief, while certain forms quite vanished in subsequent types. The close affinity with the moulding details of the distinctively Queen Anne type is strongly noticeable. One feature worth mentioning is the mantel shelf in the parlour. Such shelves were rarely found till a later date.

Hope Lodge, hard by St. Thomas’s Hill, in the Whitemarsh Valley, was built in 1723, as previously stated. It is a great square brick structure of two storeys in height with a hipped roof. As at Stenton (built in 1728), the bricks are laid in Flemish bond and occasional black headers appear. The doors and windows, like those of Graeme Park, Stenton and other contemporary houses, belonging to the first Georgian type, are higher and narrower in proportion than those of a later date. Over the front windows are wedge-shaped lintels, flush with the wall surface, formed of bricks set vertically in the centre and gradually spreading fanwise toward the sides in diagonals convergent to the base. Some of the windows at the sides and back show the flattened arches, to be seen at Graeme Park and Stenton, over slightly countersunk tympana above the frame tops. Over some of the doors are transoms of six or seven square lights in a single row, while over the tall and very narrow side door, just as at Stenton and as over the two narrow rear doors at Graeme Park, there is a transom of eight square lights in two rows of four each. A cornice at the eaves has a deep sweeping cove of plaster on a lath backing, while the heavy moulding courses are of wood. Viewed from the front, the roof is hipped, but from the side it presents a curious combination of hip and gambrel.

Within, a hall of unusual width, far larger than most rooms nowadays, traverses the full depth of the house and opens into spacious chambers on each side. The chief rooms have round arched doorways and narrow double doors, heavily panelled. All the panelling, in fact, is heavy. The single doors of the first floor are surmounted by handsome pediments. There are deep panelled window seats in the ground floor rooms and the windows have exceptionally broad and heavy muntins. The breadth of the fireplaces, faced with dark Scotch marble, and the massiveness of the wainscotting correspond with the other features. Throughout the house all the woodwork, which is said to have been fetched from England, though handsomely wrought, is heavy and most substantial. Midway back in the hall a flattened arch springs from fluted pilasters with capitals of a peculiar design. The stairway, which is remarkably good, and strongly suggests an old English arrangement, ascends laterally from the rear hall. Back of the house a wide, brick-paved porch connects with another building where were the servants’ quarters and kitchens—an arrangement characteristic of the period.

Of the houses representative of the second Georgian type, Whitby Hall, Kingsessing, West Philadelphia, comes first on the list. The western end of Whitby Hall, the part with which we are here concerned, was added in 1754 by Colonel James Coultas, “merchant, ship owner, farmer, mill owner, fox hunter, vestryman, soldier, judge, High Sheriff of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1758, and enthusiastic promoter of all philanthropic and public enterprises.” The gables of the high pitched roof face north and south and are pierced with oval windows to light the cock loft. The walls, not on one side only, as is often the case where a special nicety of finish was sought, but all the way round, are built of carefully squared and dressed native grey stone. On the south front is a flag paved piazza, surmounted by a graceful spindled balustrade, while around the western and northern sides runs a penthouse. The deeply coved cornice beneath the eaves is carried in a continuous horizontal line as a string course across the gable end or rather the gable side walls.

A remarkable feature about Whitby is the arrangement of the roof. It is the exact reverse of what is ordinarily found. The ridge pole, instead of running parallel to the length of the structure, traverses its breadth, thus making the peak higher, the slope longer, and allowing space for a roomy third floor, all of which the view of the south front clearly shows. This arrangement also avoids the need of dormers. “On the north front is a tower-like projection in which the stairway ascends with broad landings. The low doorway in this tower has always been used on occasions of large gatherings at Whitby, whether grave or gay, because it admits to the wide hall running through the western wing, giving admittance to the large rooms on either side. The doorway and windows in the tower are all surrounded by brick trims, which give both variety and distinction against the grey stone walls—a treatment not often met with near Philadelphia. In the top of the pediment with its dentilled cornice, a bull’s eye light, also surrounded with brick trim, is of particular interest because it was a porthole glass from one of Colonel Coultas’s favourite ships, and was set there because of a cherished sentiment. On peak and corners of the tower pediment three urns add a note of state.

“All the woodwork and sundry embellishments